Tag Archives: Collectibles

These days I don’t have much time to read fiction in general, and I tend to avoid novels set in Salem in particular, but I’m always on the lookout for later nineteenth and early twentieth-century novels with alluring covers as part of my ever-increasing, very random Salem collection of material objects. My interest is more cultural than literary, and two trends are immediately apparent when you examine a range of Salem titles dating from the first half of the twentieth century: the girls are somehow entangled in the Witch Trials, and the boys are off to sea. I can’t imagine a more distinct gender division–and while the accused/entrapped/bewitched girls continue into the later twentieth century and later, the seafaring boys disappear. Here we have a YA literary illustration of the rise and dominance of Witch City. I think it all starts with the 1842 publication of Ebeneezer Wheelwright’s The Salem Belle: A Tale of 1692, which has recently been revisited, reissued and revealed: as source material for Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter.

And after Salem Belle: Ye Lyttle Salem Maid: a Story of Witchcraft (1898) by Pauline Bradford Mackie, Lucy Foster Madison’s Maid of Salem Town (1906), Dulcibel by Henry Peterson (1907), and Frederick Sterling’s A Fair Witch (1911), and others—most were popular and reprinted continuously in the first decades of the nineteenth century. This is a 1934 edition which illustrates the type of covers I crave almost perfectly.

One novel from this era that doesn’t quite fit into the endangered-Salem-maid category is Esther Forbes’ Mirror for Witches, which was first published in 1928 and was seldom out of print for the rest of the century. With its provocative woodcut illustrations by Robert Gibbings and its seventeenth-century “voice” (of a girl who witnessed her parents’ burning for witchcraft before she came to Salem), this tale is pretty graphic in more ways than one: the New York Times assessed it as a “strange, eerie book” and a “unique achievement”. It’s hard to believe that Forbes was also the author of Johnny Tremaine!

Plots get lot more modernly romantic as the twentieth century progresses, of course, resulting in novels like Mildred Reid’s The Devil’s Handmaidens (1951), in which Puritan maiden Hope Farrell is betrothed to a wealthy Salem magistrate when the object of her affection, handsome young sailor Dan Marston, is captured by slave traders on one of his annual voyages. When he returns eventually, she confesses her love for him but maintains that “a Godly maiden does not break a troth”, and heartbroken Dan yields to the wanton wiles of a certain Submit Tibby (I kid you not). Meanwhile, all hell breaks loose when the Salem Village girls start their fits, and Hope’s own mother is drawn into their net. It’s all there on the cover, how could I resist it? A least we have a little maritime history here. A romantic rivalry also fuels the plot of John Jenning’s The Salem Frigate (1946) which moves the setting up to the Salem’s golden age. The covers below (hardcover and paperback) are a little deceiving: we’re in the realm of men now.

The realm of men (or boys) generally necessitates a wartime setting for Salem novels: the Salem Frigate was set primarily during the War of 1812, and a series of adventurous Salem boys books from earlier in the century featured the American Revolution: The Armed Ship America; or When we Sailed from Salem (1900) was part of James Otis’s Boy’s Own Series, A Patriot Lad of Old Salem (1925) was one volume in a series of Patriot Lads books written by Russell Gordon Carter. Mildred Flagg’s A Boy of Salem (1939), a companion to the author’s Plymouth Maid, is set in the time of seventeenth-century settlement, not that of the later trials. All these Salem boys have a great deal of freedom of mobility: they face the frontier and trials which are largely self-imposed, in stark contrast to those of their fictional female counterparts who were confined to the suffocating world of Salem, 1692.

And now for the shoes. While I didn’t find the latest PEM blockbuster material exhibition Shoes: Pleasure and Pain to be particularly probing, it was definitely aesthetically pleasing, and I enjoyed the insights into the production and collection of shoes. For me, the other exhibition themes of transformation, status and seduction did not seem quite as well-developed as those of creation and obsession. The cumulative presentation focuses on the extreme rather than the mundane, and on the colorful rather than the neutral, and thus is tailor (cobbler?)-made for social media. I kept thinking that I had seen it before, and then I realized I just missed it at the Victoria & Albert Museum when I was in London last winter, but must have absorbed a lot of the publicity when planning my trip. Two minor comments: 1) I was really happy to see a high-heeled King Charles II rather than the usual Louis XIV, Sun/Shoe king (after all, Charles II was a tall man whose shoes were a choice of fashion while the much-shorter Louis XIV’s heels were partly an invention of necessity); and 2) Loved the creative use of shoe boxes, and our opportunity to “peak” into the closets of some local collectors.So what’s next? We have seen myriad garments, hats and now shoes: perhaps purses or gloves? Since the PEM seems to follow in line with the Victoria & Albert Museum with these types of exhibitions I went to the latter’s website to look for upcoming events, and my bet is on lingerie based on their spring show, Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear.

An assortment of heels, one of several Latchet shoes in the exhibition, North Shore shoes, and myriad embellishments: feathers, polka dots, pom poms, laces………………

The last part of the exhibit, on collection/obsession, was probably the most introspective, if only because it featured the collections of some local shoe lovers–and insights into how they wear/store/display their shoes. Love the last shoe “box”, which I suppose can double as an ottoman in the dressing room.

July was pretty hot; August will likely be cooler, but I still think it’s time to revive an old summer drink here in Salem called switchel. A colonial “ade” made of ginger, vinegar, and a sweetening agent, switchel has enjoyed a revival over the last few years, and is currently being produced in such variant hipster havens as Vermont and Brooklyn. In older texts, it’s often referred to as “haymaker’s punch”, implying agrarian origins, but I’ve also found plenty of references to switchel in maritime and military sources. There’s a famous reference to it in the account of one of the major naval battles of the War of 1812, between the USS Constitution and the HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia. Anticipating a great victory, the Guerriere Captain James Dacres ordered his cooks to “prepare the switchel” for the soon-to-be captured Americans. After Old Ironsides prevailed, this phrase was incorporated into a mocking/patriotic American sailors’ song: When prisoners we’ve made them, With switchel we will treat them; We’ll welcome them with Yankee Doodle Dandy, O. It’s definitely one of the first American beverages. There’s a very nice reference to Salem switchel in the memoirs of Boston Brahmin Robert C. Winthrop, who marched up to Salem on a hot summer’s day in 1822 in the company of the Boston Light Infantry to camp out on the Common:a wisp of straw for our bed, and a bit of thin bunting above our heads, through which we could see the sentinel stars keeping their watch in the sky, more vigilant than any sentinels we could station, were our only and all-sufficient accommodations; and a little molasses and water and ginger–a switchel I think it was called–was our best drink. Elizabeth Hall’s Practical American Cookery and Domestic Economy (1857) contains the basic recipe (mix half a gallon of molasses, one quart of vinegar, 2 ounces of powdered ginger with five gallons of water, boil and cool to make a beverage that is not only “very pleasant” but also “highly invigorating and healthful”) but it is clearly suitable for all sorts of substitutions and additions: the modern Vermont versions contains maple.

Salem is a major foodie town today, with countless restaurants and bars, a distillery, a cider taproom, a brand new beer brewery, beer hall & garden, and a whole bunch of clever and crafty people: surely someone could produce and market a special Salem Switchel drawing on our city’s past and present? A Salem variety should no doubt feature molasses, but I think rum would also be an appropriate (and appealing) ingredient. And I have the perfect containers for inspiration: these are beautiful vintage bottles produced for S.B. Winn & Son, producers of ginger ale and other beverages, and Eldredge’s Lagers, all made in Salem over a century ago.

Like this:

Moving on from rocks to paper today, as it is time for a more ephemeral and less serious topic. I am by no means a serious collector, but I seek out and purchase ephemera pretty consistently, generally but not exclusively Salem items. Things have to appeal to me both aesthetically and historically, and I love unusual fonts and illustrations as well as things that are architectural or zoological. I have several folders of stuff, but certainly not boxes. Trade cards continue to be an ephemeral favorite, but I seem to be buying a lot of programs lately, as well as various “visitors’ guides” to Salem: these serve as my guide to the city’s changing identity over time. Is the emphasis on Witch City or “Old Salem” or the China Trade or the city of Hawthorne? Somehow it doesn’t seem possible for Salem to be all of these things simultaneously for the authors and editors of the guides in my collection, but the programs of the various historical “pageants” that occurred over the period from 1890 to 1930 reflect a more comprehensive (though wildly historically incorrect) approach. One of my favorite recent purchases is the program for a concert/pageant sponsored by Salem’s G.A.R. Post in 1895 entitled Historic Salem Illustrated. Representing Epochs in the History of Salem from the Time of its Settlement up to the Present Year with really cool illustrations of each “epoch” (“Indian”, Colonial, Revolutionary, Commercial, “Patriotic” (basically the Civil War), and “the Present or Electric Period”) by George Elmer Browne (1871-1946) who later emerged as an important Cape Ann/Provincetown artist. The historical vignettes, set to music, include “Chief Naumkeag welcoming the Puritans”, a tableau of Colonial punishments, and “The Blue and Gray of 1895”. What better way to tap into this particular historical perspective?

So here is a random sampling of some recent additions to my ephemera files, along with some things I haven’t featured before and some notes about why I like these scraps of paper and what I have learned from them, starting with some items I chose completely for their aesthetic qualities, and more particularly, their fonts: even though Salem: its Representative Businessmen and Points of Interest is from the “Electric Age” (1893) and the menu from the Calico Tea House (in the Hawthorne Hotel) is from the Atomic Age (1953) they have a similar aesthetic quality. On the menu in 1953: “Witch House Chicken”, “Derby Wharf Scrod”, and “Seven Gables Salad”. Still in the realm of color, a few trade cards from the first decade of the twentieth century (I think): the first is a very unusual view of the Custom House, and the second features cute rabbits. And how can you beat insects and architecture! A program for an Essex Institute “Social Evening” in 1868 at Hamilton Hall which featured all these creatures viewed under a microscope with musical interludes (LOVE this snail), followed by a program for the annual meeting of the members of the Salem Club in 1914 and a ticket (multiplied) to the 1952 Chestnut Street Day house tour which was held sporadically from the 1920s to the 1970s (it would be great to revive this event).

It’s a lot easier to find things that our intended for an external audience–advertising and tourism pieces basically–than the entomological item above, or the G.A.R. or Salem Club programs. Salem really crafted and disseminated its image from at least the 1890s on and so there is a sea of promotional materials out there: brochures for walking, trolley and automobile tours, little pamphlets of photographic “glimpses” of Old Salem (besides postcards of which there are oceans). Witch City is nothing new, but it was definitely less all-encompassing a century ago, or fifty years ago, or at any time before the 1980s. One thing that you definitely notice when you look over older promotional materials is a consistent emphasis on Revolutionary Salem that is absent now. If you want to be a specialist collector, you could form a collection out of paper items created for the 1926 Salem Tercentenary alone, and at its center would be the Highlights in the History of Salem pamphlet published by the Salem Evening News, which has the perfect title for an ephemeral history.

There is a great quote from the prolific and eminently quotable British writer G. K Chesterton about ghosts–or really belief– in general which references turnip ghosts in particular: I am quite ready to believe that a number of ghosts were merely turnip ghosts, elaborately prepared to deceive the village idiot. This is from a column in the Illustrated London News in 1936: the assumption is that his audience would immediately understand the phrase “turnip ghost”, and as they were British, they probably did. An American audience would and does require some translation. A turnip ghost refers literally to a Jack o’lantern made out of a turnip (but I would also include turnip-headed scarecrows)–something out there in the fields that was not a real ghost but that could create fear–a bugaboo (the best word ever). Old World turnips predated New World pumpkins as the material of choice for All Hallows Eve Jack o’lanterns, and remained predominate for some time, both in the British Isles and on the Continent. And you can easily see why: turnips are scary.

The turnip-headed scarecrows are equally eerie: they turn up on Halloween postcards from the early twentieth century in both the United States and Europe, but are not exclusively tied to the holiday. Turnips just easily lend themselves towards anthropomorphic expressions.

I bought some turnips the other day–larger ones from a farm up north and smaller ones at our farmers market–with the intent to carve them into something scary, but I’m not sure I can do it–even with Martha Stewart’s assertive advice. They don’t have the soft insides of a pumpkin, and they are much more diminutive. I might chicken out and merely draw on them, because I’m not sure that I want to put in the time and effort: every single time I’ve carved out a pumpkin it has been stolen days before Halloween, and I’m sure my little turnip lanterns would be even more vulnerable!

My turnips and Martha’s creations: I might just settle for the turnips (and radishes) in a dish decoration, lower right. See a very scary traditional turnip Jack o’lantern here.

I am not cooking this Thanksgiving (fortunately), but that did not stop me from browsing through cookbooks old and new (which is of course much easier than cooking). My recent dip into the history of molasses exposed me to a world of puddings, and I would like to make a least one over the holidays. Puddings of the past seem so interesting and textural, much unlike the smooth packaged puddings we have today. Pudding has become a rather generic word for desert in British English, but in the past, there were clearly variant types of puddings–savory and sweet, boiled, steamed, moulded, drippings, blood, bread, fruit, pastry, custard–with a wealth of amazing names: “Quaking Pudding”, “Hasty Pudding”, “Spotted Dick”, Cabinet, Bakewell, “Queen of Puddings”, Roly-Roly. By the middle of the nineteenth century, when the popular Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management was first published, the list of puddings had been whittled down some, but was still quite long.

Before the nineteenth century, puddings were both savory and sweet: the trend line is definitely towards the latter but it takes time. I’m looking through my neat little facsimile edition of The Second part of the Good Hus-wives Jewell (1597) and what puddings do I see? A pudding of “Calves Chaldron”, several recipes for that perennial Scottish favorite, Haggis pudding, a pudding of veal and spices, and a “pudding in a pot” with mutton or veal. No sweets. I consulted Joseph Cooper’s The art of cookery refin’d and augmented containing an abstract of some rare and rich unpublished receipts of cookery (1654) to gauge pudding developments in the seventeenth century, and found a mix of savory and sweet: rice puddings and bread puddings, “white puddings” and “black (blood) puddings”, oatmeal pudding, French barley pudding, “a hasty pudding in a bagge” and shaking and quaking puddings. Haggis was hanging in there too. For the eighteenth century, I looked at two cookbooks and found a diverse array of pudding recipes. Henry Howard’s England’s Newest way in all sorts of Cookery, Pastry and all Pickles that are fit to be Used (1708) offers up Green Pudding, Calves’ Foot Pudding, Puddings in which to boil chickens and/or pigeons, and cabbage pudding (yuck), along with a “Good Pudding” that looks like a mix of sweet and savory, while A Collection of above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick, and Surgery (1734) has recipes for apple, orange and lemon puddings, along with liver pudding (yuck, yuck) and the soon-to-be classic plumb pudding.

The eighteenth century does seem to be the golden age of puddings, which were so important that they even became political. I found a Salem pudding story in the charming little book written by Marianne Cabot Silsbee, A Half-Century in Salem (1887): apparently the city’s Federalists and Democrats were divided not only in their politics but also their pudding-eating habits, with the former eating their pudding before the main courses, the latter after. Puddings were perfect symbols for satire and caricature across the Atlantic, as the plum(b) pudding came to be both quintessentially British and Christmas in the nineteenth century. It in this century that my favorite pudding (besides “Hasty Pudding”, which is transformed into “Indian Pudding” in America with the substitution of corn meal for oats) emerges: “Tipsy Pudding”, better known as Trifle. That’s pretty common now, so I want to go for something old/new in my own pudding experiments: I think I might try out the “Amber Pudding” (which is very old) and “Hedgehog Pudding” recipes in the wonder book of Victorian puddings, Puddings and Pastries à La Mode (1893) by a certain Mrs. DeSalis. Because right after Thanksgiving, it’s pudding time.

All Cookbook images: British Library; Puddings & Pastry here; George Cruikshank, “Pudding Time”, Plate 6 from Illustrations of Time (1827), British Museum.

The acquisitive instinct in me has been kicking in lately, which I think is a good thing. I’ve been working very hard for the past year or so, and focusing on more material things gives my mind a rest. It’s really all about the search: I don’t have to buy, I can just look (really)! Looking around, I get little short-lived obsessions, and right now I’m very focused on the creations of the prolific artistic partnership of Kahn/Selesnick, whose work spans decades and genres and explores a myriad of alternative historical and futuristic themes in ways that are both conceptually and visually panoramic. Be prepared to be submerged into other worlds if you check out their website or those of any of the galleries that showcase their work, most of which is way beyond my ability to acquire except, perhaps, for a few of their Green Men. When I was browsing around the online shop of the Morbid Anatomy Museum (which has quite an eclectic collection, let me assure you), I became immediately fixated on the Kahn/Selesnick calendar plates, which feature a different Green Man for each month, and then I was off on a mission in search of more.

I think I can swing one or two plates (of course I want them all) but the Green Man photographs are a bit too dear for me. I would love a few of the amazing hand-colored “souvenir” playing cards from Kahn & Selesnick’s Eisbergfreistadt (a fictitious independent city-state located on a Baltic iceberg in the 1920s) series, but they seem to be long sold out, so I suppose my only paper option is a seed pack designed by the dynamic duo for Hudson Valley Seed Library. I can frame it!